Double Forté, #1
Gus LeGarde's life essentially ended four years ago, when his beloved wife leapt to her death at the Letchworth Gorge. Today, Gus lavishes love on his family, trying to bury the pain. But trouble arrives when his arrogant son-in-law's business partner goes missing, and Gus's innocent friend is set up to take the fall.
Double Forté: "author's preferred edition" 2015, eBook, print, and audiobook. Read more about this chilling wintry mystery here.
"Double Forté is a satisfyingly riveting tale with an appealing hero, whose love of music and gourmet food is as fundamental as his courage." - Laurel Wemett, Finger Lakes Magazine
Upstaged #2
When Gus offers to play piano for a high school production of a musical he wrote, he never expects to butt heads with an arrogant Latin teen who's fixated on his fiancée Camille, or to be called upon to protect the cast from a sadistic psychopath who plays increasingly dangerous pranks on them. The stakes change when Cindi, the school janitor, is shot on his front porch. Gus and the local cops need to identify and capture the sickest villain ever to haunt the Genesee Valley.
Listen to the CD for the audiobook with original music here: SPIRIT ME AWAY
Mazurka, #3
Mazurka takes Gus and Camille to Europe, but it's certainly not the honeymoon they imagined... Author's preferred edition, 2016. See more here.
Join Gus and Camille LeGarde as they chase down a family secret with the potential to change European history. When Gus's brother-in-law is framed for a neo-Nazi's murder, the couple is plunged into a cat-and-mouse game where the stakes are lethal and the future of Europe hangs in the balance.
FireSong #4
FireSong brings the LeGarde family back to East Goodland. Read excerpts here.
When a tornado touches down in Gus's hometown, it unearths the body of a missing churchgoer. Who murdered Colin Springer? Is it linked to the recent salt mine collapse? The mystery leads Gus to an underground labyrinth, where he finds the most shocking discovery ever to rock the Genesee Valley.
Tremolo: cry of the loon #5
When eleven-year-old Gus LeGarde sees a girl fleeing an attacker in the dark Maine woods, he and his friends spend the rest of the summer hunting for her on horseback and in their rowboat, only to face the wrath of the nastiest villain ever to haunt the Belgrade Lakes.
Tremolo is available in print, eBook, and audio book formats. Suitable for YA through adult, this is the first book that takes Gus back to his childhood in Maine in the summer of 1964. Officially, this is the "prequel" to Double Forté! Find more here.
Don't Let the Wind Catch You #6
When Gus LeGarde befriends Tully, a cranky hermit in the woods who speaks to an Indian spirit, he doubts his sanity. But Penni rattles tin cups and draws in mirrors, and things change fast.
Faced with long-buried family secrets and danger, Gus must summon courage beyond his years to survive.
I enjoyed writing about Gus's youth so much that I just had to do a sequel to the prequel. I think I'll continue the "young Gus" books indefinitely!
See more here.
The Liar's Gallery #7
Art and music collide in this special edition based on Dale Lazar's ancestor, Emma Cunningham. When a handsome but decadent Greek tenor from the Eastman School of Music stalks Gus's stepdaughter, Shelby, Gus rallies to protect her innocence.
He asks for help from his old friend, Byron who works at the college. Gus and Byron become involved in an investigation dealing with a counterfeit Monet. Is the painting real, or fake?
Through it all, Gus discovers a shocking tie to the past through the paintings of his great, great aunt, Emma Mabel Clark.
See more here.
Spirit Me Away #8
This prequel to Double Forté takes place in 1969 when Elsbeth and Gus studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Mass.
White slave rings, an engaging flower child, the Boston Rock scene, and the titillating reckless abandon of the sixties set the stage for Gus's sudden need to grow up fast for the sake of his grief-stricken father and impending fatherhood.
See more here.
Under the Ice #9
When Gus's friend, Officer Joe Russell begins to slowly lose his mind, Gus struggles to help him overcome sudden agoraphobia set off by a wintry accident mimicking the scene where his own wife died ten years earlier.
Camille's abusive ex-husband gets out of jail and comes back into Camille's life, absconding with their daughter Shelby. Gus needs Joe's help to rescue his newly adopted daughter and struggles to save both from deadly fates.
See more here.
Lady Blues: forget-me-not #10
In book 10 of the LeGarde Mystery series, Gus unravels twin mysteries of an abused Korean seamstress and a 1940s jazz ingénue whose pianist lover disappeared overseas on the same night Glen Miller's plane was lost in English Channel.
Gus helps an Alzheimer's patient reclaim his identity, while dodging a drug company who will silence any witness to keep the truth of their breakthrough Alzheimer's treatment under wraps.
See more here.
Voodoo Summer, #11
Summer, 1966: For thirteen-year-old Gus LeGarde, summertime always means Loon Harbor, his grandparents idyllic fishing resort on Great Pond. The season is a grand tradition of swimming, boating, and new adventures with his best friends, twins Siegfried and Elsbeth. But this summer, everything changes when a new lodge down the shore threatens the resort and triggers a chain of events that will transform Gus and his friends forever.
See more here.
Murder on the Brewster Flats, #12
Music professor Gus LeGarde and his wife Camille are looking forward to a relaxing, month-long seaside vacation at Paines Creek Beach. But Gus barely has a chance to feel the sand between his toes before a near-miss car accident drags him right into the middle of a local family feud — and a centuries-old mystery that’s begging to be solved.
See more here.